I started painting directly on canvas bags back in 2007 on a whim. Tomboy that I was, I hadn’t been much for carrying a purse before then, and I was looking for a way to make the simple cloth bags I was using into something that was more me. What better way than to put a self-portrait on my bag?

Once I got started on this theme, there was no stopping me. It galled me that fashion houses have dictated what we carry around for years, that people were willing to put themselves on wait lists and to pay through the nose in order to accessorize in precisely the same way as everyone else. And while I wasn’t interested in becoming a kind of chic-ness factory, I was looking to shake things up a bit.

I wanted to put an end to the It bag, with its too-short season, its unjustifiable luxury price, and its trendy designers, so I set about swapping out the It for a You and giving everyone’s purse a facelift. These images represent how far I’ve gotten to date, and if you click on the thumbnails you’ll see how each is part of the overall composition of a very pretty and very functional item.